Marisa Abela admits Amy Winehouse biopic “felt like jumping in at the deep end”
Marisa Abela, who portrayed Amy Winehouse in the biopic Back to Black, has said the role “felt like jumping in at the deep end”.
The Sam Taylor-Johnson-directed feature arrived in 2024 and documents the turbulent short life of the iconic British singer, who sadly passed away in 2009 at the age of 27. It also starred Jack O’Connell as Blake Fielder-Civil, Eddie Marsan as Mitch Winehouse, and Leslie Manville as Cynthia Winehouse.
While Abela has been a star of the celebrated television series Industry, Back to Black arrived with a level of scrutiny and mainstream interest that she’d never previously experienced. During filming, paparazzi would gather to capture images of Abela as Winehouse, and the movie was also criticised upon release.
Now, during a new interview with The Guardian, Abela reflected: “As an actor, my job was to quieten all the noise and get as close as possible to the human behind that mythology. At the time, I was off my phone and off social media.”
She continued: “But I knew the conversation that was happening, and there were paparazzi; that was difficult. It felt like jumping in at the deep end.”
Last year, Abela said to Rolling Stone in regards to the negativity that surrounded Back to Black: “It was a more exposing experience to anything I’ve dealt with in the past. I’ll never fully understand the need to be a negative presence.
However, she was confident they had created “something meaningful and a story that felt like it was being told from the inside out, finally, rather than a kind of voyeuristic look into Amy’s life.”
Outside of Back to Black, Abela recently appeared in Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller Black Bag and is currently filming the fourth series of Industry.
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